


i'm choosing my confessions

by w1ldestdreams



Category: SKAM (TV)
Genre: M/M, Mental Health Issues, Religion, Sexual Identity, kind of a character study more than anything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-27
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-11-05 11:31:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11012559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/w1ldestdreams/pseuds/w1ldestdreams
Summary: "Do you believe in God?"Isak, Even, and their relationships with religion.





	i'm choosing my confessions

**Author's Note:**

> title is from "losing my religion" by r.e.m.

_Isak_

 

 

When his mother's illness started, it was slow. It was taking more care to go to church, and then making sure to attend all the groups, and then reading nothing but the bible.

"It's what God wants, Isak," she told him, and he wanted to ask,  _how do you know what God wants_? but never did, and instead held her hand as they walked to the chapel, and listened to the preacher as he talked about things that Isak wasn't sure he fully understood, like sin and salvation, but tried to remember so he could try to make sense of it later.

It wasn't until a few months later that she started talking about God speaking to her, saying she was a chosen one, and that  _bad people are trying to hurt me because of it, Isak, we have to be careful_. He remembered believing her, at the time. Remembered the preacher talking about parts of the bible where God spoke to people, and his mother was a dutiful Christian, so of course he would choose her. That was also when he first started not being able to sleep, at eleven years old, too worried about people coming to take his mother away.

One night, nearly a year later, he was just about to fall asleep when he heard her start screaming. "The Lord is with me! I will not be afraid!" she shouted, over and over, and then he started hearing things break, and jumped out of bed because  _I have to be brave, I have to protect her._

He grabbed a bat his dad had bought him when they went to a baseball game and ran towards his parent's room, only to see her throwing a glass candle holder at the wall, while his dad shouted, "There's no one here, Mari! For fuck's safe, there's no one there!" He hid behind the door and watched as she screamed and starting speaking in tongues and covering her ears while his dad tried desperately to calm her down. It took an hour before she laid down and fell asleep silently crying.

Once it was over, he saw his father run a hand through his hair and stand there staring at her, exasperated, for several minutes before finally making a move to start cleaning everything up. He didn't notice Isak until he had to rush downstairs to open the door for an officer that had been called for a disturbance and said nothing except, "Go back to sleep, Isak."

He went back to his room and laid down, keeping the bat by his side, and didn't sleep at all.

As the years went on, her episodes became more frequent, and Isak stopped going to church. There were days where she would do nothing but pray, not even eat. Sometimes, she would sit with her bible (which was old and worn, with the entire thing highlighted) for hours on end, rereading and memorizing the same passages. Those days, things were okay. Not as okay as when she was mostly lucid and could talk about things besides religion, but they were okay. They were quiet.

When he was fourteen, things started changing.

He doesn't remember the exact moment when the thought  _maybe I don't like girls_ came into his head, but he does remember the exact moment he pushed it out. He was at lunch with Jonas, trying to listen as he talked about one of the girls in his math class (but mostly thinking  _would I enjoy kissing you? I think I might_ ) when his phone buzzed with a text from his mother. That had been a new thing she started, texting him bible verses throughout the day, some days more than others, as "reminders", she called them. 

_(13:04) Mamma: Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! _

_ (13:04) Mamma: Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites,  nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God!!  _

It was the first time since he was twelve that he considered that God might really be talking to her. He must have been staring at " _nor homosexuals_ " for a beat too long because Jonas asked, "Hey, are you okay?" 

He tried to shake off the anxiety pooling in his stomach and forced a grin at Jonas. "Yeah, just zoned out for a second. But that girl? You should totally go for it." Jonas asked out Ingrid the next day, and Isak asked out her friend Sara two weeks later. (He felt like he couldn't breathe.)

When he was sixteen, his dad left, and he wasn't sure she'd ever recover. He hated him.

(He followed his lead a few months later.)

He left the bible she bought him when he was ten lying in the center of his bed, only one line highlighted,  _But he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God._

_._

_._

_Even_

 

 

He thought too much. He always had, and as he got older, it just seemed to get worse, with his thoughts racing at a mile a minute about anything and everything.

He didn't come from a religious background. His mother could be spiritual, liked to talk about things abstractly, while his father didn't talk about any of it at all. It was his grandmother when he was fourteen that got him to really start thinking about it. "Do you know God?" she asked.

"How can I know someone who lives in the sky when I live on the ground?" he asked because he was fourteen and his parents had specifically requested that he not question his grandma about religion, which he took as he cue to  _yes, do that_.

She gave him a sharp look before softening her expression and saying, "Well, I'll explain." She sat with him for a while, saying how God created the universe (and Even wanted to ask  _so who created God?_ , but she must have sensed that, as she quickly kept talking to stop him from doing so), and all life, and how he is omnipotent (he thinks being God sounds like a pretty sweet gig). 

When she left for the night, he went up to his dad and asked, "Is God real? Or is he like Santa?"

His father considered what to tell him for a long time before settling on, "Some people believe in God, and some people don't. It's about faith. You have to decide that for yourself." Even nodded like he understood when he really didn't, and spent the rest of the night googling things about God, and the bible, and the creation of the universe, and ultimately settled on  _maybe._

When he asked Sonja to be his girlfriend, she said he had to meet her parents first because  _I want them to approve, Even, I can't just date anybody_ , and he was a little offended because he didn't think he  _was_ just anybody, but he agreed all the same. She warned him before they got to her house that they were really religious, and  _I really want them to like you, so please just pretend if you have to,_ so when they asked him if he believed in God, he said, "Yes, of course," which made them smile and ask him to stay for dinner.

(When he fucked her for the first time a week later, he thought he might actually believe it.)

He met Mikael in his first year at Bakka in a film class. Even walked through the door only seconds before the final bell, and the only open seat was next to him. They introduced themselves, and were mostly silent until the teacher, who was quick to give them an assignment— _write about your favorite movie you watched this summer_ —had asked them to share their paragraphs with their neighbor and they realized they had both picked the same limited release indie film. "Do you believe in fate?" Even asked him, grinning.

"I believe Allah has a plan," Mikael replied. "So, I guess so."

With Mikael came Yousef and Mutasim, followed soon by Adam and Elias, and they were a good group. When he wasn't with Sonja, he spent most of his time with the boys at Elias's house, and they would watch movies or just shoot the shit, and it was easy. He'd never had a problem making friends, but he'd never felt as close as he did to them, especially Mikael. 

Once, Sonja had asked him, "Isn't it kind of weird? Being the only non-Muslim?" and his only response was to cock and eyebrow and shrug because  _I don't know, it's never really come up._

When he was seventeen, he spent a week in bed, his thoughts racing and feeling like he was suffocating before his mother finally got him out of the house and he was formally diagnosed with major depression. It didn't come as a shock to him. While this was the worst he'd felt, and the most noticeable, it certainly wasn't  _new._ It was just something he kept close to the chest. He remembered telling his therapist, "I think it'd be easier if I could just shut everything off, but the only way is to die. I don't think I'd do anything, but sometimes I think it'd be easier."

His mom had him go to the therapist once a week. Sometimes, he felt like she knew him better than he knew himself (sometimes, he felt like everyone did). 

"I like boys," he said to her one day, unprompted. Partially because he wanted to throw her a curve ball, let her know  _you don't know everything about me, even if you think you do_ , and partially because it was  _all he could think about_. He had only realized it a few weeks before, after a particularly vivid dream (a side effect of the anti depressants) about  _Mikael_ of all people, that the more he thought about, the more he realized he could see himself with a guy very, very easily. "I still like girls, but I like boys too."

When he was eighteen, his thoughts turned to  _Mikael, Mikael, Mikael_ , and he told Sonja he thought they should take a break. He felt better than ever. He felt like he could do anything.  _Is this what God feels like?,_ he wondered.

Mikael liked to talk about the Quran. Not always, but more than the others. More than Even was able to follow. So, he read it, and then read it again, and he didn't sleep because he was trying to memorize all the Arabic words and how to say them so he could impress Mikael. He showed up at his house at the end of the week at three AM because he couldn't sleep—had only gotten maybe four hours for the entire week, but he still felt fine—and when his dad answered the door, he asked if he could speak with Mikael, oblivious to the time or Mr. Boukhal's irritation. (But he woke him up anyway.)

He was talking as fast as his brain could move and telling Mikael everything (at three AM, when he was half delirious and couldn't really follow) and he was spouting off all the verses he'd memorized about love, and how he just  _knew_ Mikael had to feel it too. (He didn't.)

Things fell apart after that. Two weeks later, he was in the hospital and his diagnosis changed from major depression to manic depression, and he just wanted everything to _stop_. 

Instead, he was lying in a hospital bed, being monitored closely, and thought about when his grandma asked him years ago if he knew God.  _I thought I did, I thought I did_.

.

.

_a love like religion_

 

"Do you believe in God?" Isak whispered in the dead of night, curled up into Even's side, playing with the strings of his sweatpants and staring up at his face. 

Even stared up at the ceiling and played with Isak's hair as he considered the question. "I don't know," he answered honestly, just as quietly as Isak had asked. They lived alone, but sometimes they'd have these hushed conversations in the middle of the night. They were usually both slightly delirious from lack of sleep, and tonight wasn't much different.

Isak nodded, but his face was pressed into Even's side so it was more like he was nuzzling him. "Me either," he replied, and then thought about it for a second and added, "I don't think I do though."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

They laid in silence for a while, wrapped around each other, and then Even mumbled into Isak's hair, "I used to think there was a God and he hated me."

Isak was quick to respond this time. "I don't think anyone who could hate you exists."

Even rolled his eyes, but smiled and pulled him in tighter. "I said I used to. Now I think...," he paused, trying to find the right words. "Now I think if there is a God, I must be his favorite because he let me meet you."

The other boy swatted at his chest with a shy smile. Later, when they finally began drifting off to sleep, he whispered back, "I think you're his favorite too."

**Author's Note:**

> this isn't the first skam fic i've written, but it is the first one i've finished. it's 2:30 in the morning so call me out for any mistakes


End file.
